For many of you, the Summer Work Student Exchange Program was your first job experience. Whether you enjoyed what you were doing or not, you should add your experience to your resume because it will definitely give you a leg up in your professional career.

Here are a few tips:

1. Follow the general resume format; include Education, Experience and Other Skills as sections in your resume.

2. If you practiced your other official language this summer and can make conversation in that language, adding that language as a skill in your resume will improve your employability

3. Under the section “Experience”, add your YMCA exchange. Include the city/town you stayed in. It is a unique experience and will give you something to talk about during the interview.

4. Review what you did at work: did you help customers solve problems? If you did, you can add “customer service skills” in your list of qualifications. Were you in charge of leading a summer camp? If so, you definitely can add “leadership skills”. Zero in on your new or improved skills and don’t be shy in displaying them to a potential future employer!

5. Last but not least, don’t forget to spell check and look for grammar errors! Everyone appreciates a good eye and an employee who has great attention to detail. Best of luck job hunting!

That’s exactly what Edmonton Summer Work Student Exchange students Liza, Claire, Breann, Keyarra and Ryan are doing for six weeks at their job at EcoNature, Parc de la Rivière-des-Mille-Îles in Laval, Quebec.

Parc de la Rivière-des-Mille-Îles is a protected conservation park where visitors can go on many different adventures such as canoeing, kayaking, swimming and hiking. Liza and Claire work at the rentals cabin where they help visitors using both French and English, and Breann, Keyarra and Ryan help carry the canoes and rafts to the lake.

How is everyone doing Summer Work Student Exchange settling into their jobs so far?
Today, we are going to bring you into the world of Mandy and Usna, who work at Espace la Fontaine in Montreal, Quebec, a restaurant in Parc la Fontaine.

Both students have never worked in a restaurant before but are already serving guests and making coffees!

They find learning the new vocabulary in the kitchen challenging because in their French classes at home, all they learned was clothing vocabulary and other basic greetings.

Take a look at this video where they show us their work space and what they do day to day.
—–

We hope everyone is enjoying their new work places! For some of you, this will be your first job, which is very exciting. You’re eager to impress and do well in your role. We get it and we’re here for you. This is why today we’re going to teach you how to make a good impression on your employer.

Show up on time. With a smile.
It’s early and no one really wants to wake up just yet, but if you arrive on time and with a good attitude, it will show your employer that you care about the job.

Don’t expect too much recognition.
So you stayed late and mopped all the floors and dusted the entire workplace without anyone telling you to. That’s great! You are being proactive and showing dedication. Just don’t expect your boss to notice right away. He or she is probably dealing with a million other things at the moment. But pat yourself on the back anyway, because you deserve it.

Learn to love doing menial tasks.
When you start on your first job, they probably won’t send you to do all the important things in your first week. They’ll start you off on something boring like putting mailing labels on packages or taking out the trash. But if you can prove that you won’t mess up doing simple tasks like that, eventually they’ll give you more responsibility, and then the fun begins.

Put a sock in it.Don’t complain about work. It’s more impressive to an employer when they see someone working hard without whining than to see someone sigh the whole way through a task. Everyone has problems of his or her own at work. The way you handle your problems is what really makes the difference in how an employer views you.

We hope those tips helped! What are some other tips you would advise other exchange students in their workplaces?